The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [15]
"You probably could," Jamie says, "if you let yourself."
"Excuse me?"
"It's like Shakespeare—after a certain point, it just comes over you."
At dinner, I try to let it come over me.
Bella speaks, and I translate: Gems, you silly boy, you want to touch my breasts, is it not so?
—•—
Jamie is gone when I wake up.
The sky is white.
On the veranda, Yves rises when he sees me and gets me a cup of coffee.
I ask where Jamie is.
Yves says, "Maybe they went for a walk."
I go swimming. I take a shower. I read.
"The day isn't good," he says. He suggests we go into town.
I watch Yves as he drives. He has nice crow's-feet. I realize how soft he is, how unaffectedly feminine, like a boy raised by his older sisters.
He asks me questions about my job in publishing. I tell him I'm an editorial assistant, really just a secretary, but I get to read unsolicited manuscripts.
He tells me that he's written a novel.
I ask him what it's about, and he says, "The human art," or "The human heart"—I can't hear him above the wind—but he looks at me as though we two understand each other, and I nod as though we two do.
In Christiansted, Yves leads me through the courtyards of old fortresses and along the docks. He points his toe a little when he walks, like Marcel Marceau.
He takes me into a huge duty-free shop that sells perfume, china, crystal, and watches. He sprays perfume on me, smells it, and gives the verdict—"Sweet," "Musky," "Clean"—before I sniff. When we've used up my wrists and arms, he chooses one and buys it for me.
Outside it's raining. He puts his arm around me and shuttles me into a restaurant on the dock.
The waitress, blonde and Southern, says to him, "Where you been?"
"Resting," he says.
Before we leave, he goes over and speaks to her.
—•—
When we get home, Bella turns her head slowly and looks at Yves.
He says, "We had lunch in town."
Bella answers in French.
Jamie asks if I want to go for a swim.
"So," I say, once we're in the water, "where'd you go this morning?"
"Just for a walk," he says.
"Oh," I say. "I saw some old fortresses."
I realize we sound like strangers who happen to be staying at the same hotel. But he's waiting for me to finish, so I say, "They were big."
—•—
That night, we all drive back to Christiansted. Bella stops in front of the restaurant with the Southern waitress, but Yves suggests another, and we go to a bar with tables on the dock.
Jamie tells them about the restaurant he'd like to open and then the screenplay he plans to write, and Bella listens, leaning forward, watching his face.
"So what do you guys do?" I ask after my second drink.
Bella says, "We are just here until my stepfather sells the house."
"How is Alberto?" Jamie asks Bella.
I ask Yves, "What do you do?"
Bella stops talking and turns to listen.
"What do I do?" Yves says. "Take pictures. Write novels. Play the piano."
I say, "I didn't see a piano."
He tells me that Europeans are different from Americans—not so single-minded about careers. "The most important thing is to live freely."
I say, "Live free or die, I guess."
—•—
Back at the house, I smoke a cigarette on the veranda before going to bed.
Yves comes out. "Jane?" he says, and kisses my cheek so slowly it's like his lips are melting onto my skin. "Good night."
In the bedroom I ask Jamie, "What's going on?"
"What do you mean?" He's almost asleep.
"Well, something is."
He doesn't answer. I wonder if it is because he doesn't know.
—•—
In the shower, I say, "I was just noticing how we don't have sex anymore."
Jamie looks at me like I'm fully clothed.
I say, "Why did you and Bella ever break up, anyway?"
He doesn't answer right away. "She slept with someone else."
"Oh," I say.
He says, "She wanted to make me jealous."
I say, "Is that what she's doing now?"
"Why would she want to make me jealous?"
I stare at him. "I meant Yves."
"What are you talking about?" he says, and gets out of the shower.
I turn off the water and follow him, even though I still have shampoo in my hair.
I wrap myself in a towel and